Warcraft expansion offers new toys, rewards for the faithful

Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008

By the time you read this, the new "World of Warcraft" expansion will be out. "Wrath of the Lich King" hit the streets on Thursday. If past expansions are any indication, we can expect slow frame rates, server crashes and an exciting array of show-stopping bugs.

Some of the fun has already started. On Tuesday, Blizzard had to perform extended maintenance. This kept the servers offline for 12 hours longer than usual and when they finally got it working again, they'd lost all of our in-game mail.

They're promising to restore it sometime next week, and while we're waiting, we have some new content to keep us entertained.

There's a recurring event happening in Stormwind and Orgrimmar as the Lich King tries to stir up a little pre-patch mayhem. Expect your frame rate to sink to single digits as players flock to get a piece of the action.

Alliance gets an elaborate battle in Stormwind Harbor featuring a bunch of elaborate new architecture and the return of King Wrynn. Horde gets a sky full of Frost Wyrms and an abortive duel between Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream.

Apparently the Horde used up all their developer love with the addition of Blood Elves and are now once again the neglected stepchild of WoW.

The most interesting developments this week have been unintentional, as Blizzard temporarily made Season 2 arena gear free for all takers. I'd like to say I was strong enough to resist the temptation of free epics, but I took the bait, fully expecting the goodies to vanish in the morning.

Like an evil Santa who buys your gifts at Rent-A-Center, Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away.

I also had a chance to preview the Death Knight hero class this week. I'm not cool or important enough to get a spot in the beta, but WoW Insider came to my rescue with a comprehensive series of screenshots that revealed their starting storyline.

Death Knights are the game's first "hero" class - that is, a class that starts at level 55, after you've leveled at least one other character to 55. Each Death Knights starts in a unique instance segregated from the rest of the world, giving the character creation process an epic, intimate feel that is unlike anything else in the game.

Death Knights start as evil servants of the Lich King. In the early stages of the game you will burn villages and slaughter peasants while they beg for mercy. There's even a surreal torture sequence that turns into a kind of sick slapstick comedy.

I know it sounds ridiculous to describe a torture sequence as innocent and funny, but Blizzard managed to take a dark premise and give it a cartoonish comedy spin.

Young Death Knights will craft unique weapons and pick up a dozen juicy-looking magic items as they progress through the starting quest. The quest ends in an epic battle that puts you on intimate terms with WotLK's title villain and reveals that working for a soulless undead monarch isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Death Knights look like they're going to be the Blood Elves of this expansion. In other words, they look sexy, cool and ridiculously overpowered.

Everybody and their brother will want one. Expect to see thousands of figures with glowing swords and black armor competing for monster spawns in Outland. Expect to see an absurd proliferation of Death Knights followed by the inevitable overcorrection by the devs.

Death Knights were ostensibly created to correct a shortage of tanks in the game, just like Blood Elves were created to correct the population discrepency between Alliance and Horde.

Expect performance issues and server queues as old friends (and recovering addicts) return to Warcraft to try out the new toys. Expect to get left in the dust by your guild mates as alpha players rush to be the first to hit level 80. Expect to lose sleep and "repurpose" money from your Christmas kitty as you buy the game for friends and loved ones.

And finally, expect bitter, jealous blog posts from Internet columnists who are too cheap to buy the expansion right away.